It might be fair to assume that most Maine Coon owners want to save money by buying in bulk.
Some people might say that a 10kg bag of dry cat food lasts for 3 months while others may say it will last for 6 months or even 9 months.
To answer this question, you need to know how much your Maine Coon eats in one day in terms of weight.
You need to calculate the number of kilograms of food your cat needs on a daily basis in order to determine how long a 10kg bag will last.
So, how long does a 10kg bag of dry food last for a Maine Coon?
An average Maine Coon will be around 10lbs for females and 15lbs for males. Female Maine Coons need 300 calories a day, and males need 450 calories a day. A female Maine Coon will survive for 2 months on a 10kg bag of dry food, and a male will survive around 50 days, assuming they only eat the dry food.
The Maine Coon needs a high protein diet so the quality of the cat food needs to be considered.
Let’s walk through the calculation process.
Female Maine Coons range from 8 to 15 lbs and males from 12 to 18lbs.
According to many leading veterinarians, the weight of the Maine Coon is important in counting calories needing to be consumed.
The reason is that when calculating the amount of food, it’s important to know the weight of your cat.
To maintain a healthy Maine Coon you should be feeding them 30 calories per pound per day.
Thus an 8lb cat would need around 240 calories per day of dry food.
Maine Coons are a slightly larger breed of cat though.
An average 10lb female Maine Coon requires 300 calories a day.
An average male Maine Coon, however, is 15lbs, and so will require 450 calories a day.
So, now we know how many calories an average Maine Coon must consume per day, but how much dry food does that entail?
If you feed your Maine Coon high quality cat food, rich in the proteins it needs and with little filler then one cup of cat food will be around 500 calories.
This equates to 2/3rds of a cup for a female Maine Coon and 90% of a cup for an average sized male Maine Coon.
One full cup of dry cat food, should weigh around 8 ounces which is 227g.
Therefore:
A female Maine Coon will require (227 x 0.666) about 151g of dry food.
A male Maine Coon will require (227 x 0.9) about 204g of dry food.
So a few factors will determine this question.
Obviously, is your Maine Coon bigger or smaller than average? With bigger Maine Coons the propensity to consume more is proportionally greater.
You also need to think about how active your Maine Coon is. The more active the cat, the more it will need in calories to sustain its active lifestyle.
Typically, indoor cats will not need to consume as many calories as outdoor Maine Coons will, again, for obvious reasons.
Another factor to consider is the quality of the food. Higher quality foods for Maine Coons will be around 450 to 500 calories per 8 ounce cup.
The cheaper brands will be food with more fillers than quality proteins, and the calorie count can be considerably less. Thus more food may need to be consumed so your Maine Coon gets the calories it needs to sustain a healthy lifestyle.
The other factor to consider is whether you need to feed your Maine Coon only dry food. A combination of wet foods and quality dry foods would be recommended.
Only using 50g of dry food a day will make a bag last 3 times as long as if you only feed your Maine Coon dry food at 1151g per day.
Typically, Maine Coon dry food will come in 1, 2, 5, or 10kg bags.
So here is a handy little table.
Female | Male | |
1 kg bag | 6.5 days | 4.9 days |
2 kg bag | 13 days | 10 days |
5 kg bag | 32.5 days | 25 days |
10 kg bag | 65 days | 49 days |
Once again, this table assumes good quality food, a single Maine Coon, an average sized Maine Coon, and feeding them dry food only.
Adjust as necessary.
So now we know a female Maine Coon can survive for 2 months or so on a single 10kg bag of quality dry food.
A male by comparison, survives around 2 weeks less at around 50 days.
This is only if you feed them dry food though.
Most Maine Coon owners will feed a combination of wet and dry foods.
So when you are considering how long a bag of dry food will last, just remember that it is more than likely to be consumed in less time if wet food is also being fed on the side.
Dry foods have a life expectancy of around 6 months once it’s opened before it starts to lose its nutritional value.
Even using once a day, a 10kg bag will still be fresh, even if you only have a small Maine Coon and serve one dry portion a day.